Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Thursday, October 30, 2003
River navigation draws crowds and questions
A crowd of about 100 people kept the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers busy Wednesday with about 90 questions on its study of commercial navigation needs on the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers.
It's what the Corps has come to expect in La Crosse, when the topic is possible expansion of the lock and dam system on the river, said Kevin Bluhm of the Corps' St. Paul District office, who was moderating the meeting.
A similar session in Bloomington, Minn., the previous night had about half as many questions from the same number of people, Bluhm said.
The Corps has been working on the study since 1988, but reopened the process in 2001 in the wake of a federal investigation prompted by complaints the Corps had inflated numbers to favor lock and dam expansion.
The revised study is aimed at better weighing environmental effects against commercial barge shipping needs.
This was the sixth of seven public meetings the Corps is holding in communities along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers during the past week as it works toward releasing a draft of the study in April 2004.
Wednesday, the Corps outlined six navigation alternatives for the 37-lock, 1,200-mile waterway system, ranging from taking no action to building new locks at La Grange and Peoria, Ill., and expanding locks 14-18 from Davenport to Burlington, Iowa, at a projected cost of $2.3 billion.
This Corps study, however, also includes environmental mitigations, such as combatting shoreline erosion, creating river islands, using water level management to encourage native plant growth and installing channels that could allow fish to get beyond the dams more easily.
Cost estimates for these ecosystem restoration projects ranged from $1.7 billion to $8.4 billion over 50 years.
Supporters of lock expansion continued to insist they need to move crops down the river faster to compete with other countries on the world grain market.
The locks on the upper Mississippi now are capable of taking only 600-foot barges, which means anything longer has to be unlinked, passed through in segments and then rehooked on the other side.
Having a 1,200-foot lock would reduce congestion and delays, supporters said.
A number of farmers from both sides of the river spoke in favor of lock expansion and called on the Corps to stop the study and start construction.
"We know it's needed," said Larry Larson of southcentral Minnesota. "I'd like to see the project get off its duff."
But those opposed to lock expansion challenged the Corps' projections that river shipping would increase in the future, noting that the level of barge traffic has remained about the same for the past 20 years.
They also questioned relying on federal funding for most, if not all, of the habitat improvements, given the fickle nature of congressional approval for such projects in the past.
The river doesn't just economically support agriculture, noted Dan McGuiness of the Audubon Upper Mississippi River Campaign. A number of businesses rely on the river being a draw for fishing, recreation and tourism.
"It not only matters for birds, fish and wildlife, but also for people," McGuiness said.
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